The EU v the EU at al.

The Negotiations of The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)

Abstract

The thesis analyses the launch of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations between the EU and the US, focusing primarily on the former. The leading question for the analysis is: How was consensus reached in the EU for the launch of the TAFTA/TTIP negotiations and what affected the EU negotiating position during the TTIP bargaining process? The analysis, which belongs to the realm of Economic Diplomacy, will rely on a theoretical framework based on Putnam’s Two Level Games, enriched by Multilevel Governance theory, and literature focused on the role of the frames. The original contributions offered by this thesis to existing knowledge consists, first, of adding to the literature on TTIP negotiations and Economic Diplomacy by exploring the interactions among the different actors involved in the TAFTA/TTIP negotiations and how they used competing arguments (based on fresh empirical data) to build coalitions. Secondly, the analysis considers why certain frames became more salient than others and how this affected the negotiation process that has been ongoing since the 1990s (an aspect which has not been systematically explored in the TTIP literature hitherto). Thirdly, it analyses how and why several issues within various sectors were affected differently during the negotiation process. The analysis goes beyond the most widely-studied case of ISDS to explore seven empirical cases. These mechanisms have only been addressed in a limited fashion in the literature to date and under different theoretical premises. Finally, by adopting a framework based on domestic and institutional-based approaches and the use of frames, the thesis also develops a useful basis for the further analysis of the EU trade policy and negotiation process.